The first known attempts to tackle the problem at hand are disclosed in and by U.S. Pat. No. 908,034 (Dec. 29, 1908) and U.S. Pat. No. 1,520,440 (Dec. 23, 1924), both to Frank Pyleck and entitled “Automatic Fire-Escape”.
In the first Patent there was described a foldable chute normally stored in a box that is hingedly supported. In the standby position, the box is arrested against the outer wall of the building, at one side of a window. When needed, the box is released and allowed, under the bias of springs, to smash into and is break open the window. The chute becomes released and projects down. The ejection of the chute, as well as its support in a sloping down to ground level position, are sustained by a coil spring wound around the chute along its entire length, while the exit side is freely rested on the ground.
Further disclosed were a pair of cords passed along the chute by which the chute can be collapsed and folded back into the storage box.
In the second, later Patent, the inventor proposed to substitute the supporting coil spring by a solid track or rail permanently mounted to the building wall above the window and inclining down parallel to the path of the unfolded chute. The chute, after being deployed will be suspended from the rail by a series of wheeled hangers running along the rail.
Quite obviously, these solutions might have been of some merit at the beginning of the past century with regard to buildings of, say, four or five stories at the most, but out of the question for modern hi-rise buildings. Hence, and only quite recently, other solutions have been proposed—cf. U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,596 (1978); U.S. Pat. No. 4,240,520 (1980); U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,621 (1983), and U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,659 (1986), each one pointing in a different direction and none of them known to have gained commercially successful implementation.
It is therefore the general object of the present invention to overcome the deficiencies of the prior art chute-gliding fire-escape systems.
It is a further object of the invention to employ a tension cable as the only supporting means of the sliding sleeve.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide delimiting stretches of cables, associated with the same tension cable for forming knee-like sections along the sleeve for locally moderating the inclination angle thereof.